Raphaël Pichon & Pygmalion rethink Mozart’s Zaide on the Salzburg Pageant

The brand new plot thus used all of the music from Zaide however expanded it with vocal gadgets and choruses from the cantata Davide Penitente which in flip had music Mozart reused from his unfinished Mass in C minor. All the brand new musical materials preserved its unique phrases so the piece was polyglot, the singers transferring between German and Italian. Completions of Zaide generally use music from Thamos which Mozart wrote across the similar time, and we did have some instrumental itesm from Thamos. However Davide Penitente dates from 5 – 6 years later, thus giving a disjunct in model from the extremely partaking singspiel to the extra intense large-scale sacred drama of Davide Penitente.

In the course of the prologue, the dialogue between Lea Desandre’s Persada and Johannes Martin Kränzle’s Allazim was polyglot, she asking questions in Italian and he responding in German. Then for the principle Zaide, Kränzle supplied all of the spoken narration in German, together with important sections of melodrama, a tool Mozart utilized in Zaide. This left us having a narrative instructed to us reasonably than experiencing it by way of the characters, and the variations in model between Zaide and Davide Penitente meant that the music appeared as an example reasonably than characterise the drama.

Mozart: Zaide – Lea Desandre, Sabine Devieilhe, Pygmalion – Salzburg Pageant (Picture: SF/Marco Borrelli)

It was price it, although, to listen to Sabine Devieilhe singing Zaide’s music. She introduced a strong depth to her each utterance but her means with Mozart’s vocal strains meant that actions like ‘Ruhe sanft’ had been pure magic. Lea Desandre made a poignant Persada, solely in her closing aria getting to essentially stretch her musical wings although she paired elegantly with Devieilhe for his or her duet from Davide Penitente.

Daniel Behle made an intriguing Solliman. He introduced an admirable power to the music alongside together with his acquainted sense of clear line. Behle obtained additional music from Davide Penitente which went some technique to making specific the character’s change from evil to enlightened.

Julian Prégardien was an interesting and engaged Gomatz, although there was no denying that he was woefully underused musically. Johannes Martin Kränzle made an interesting narrator and he did a pleasant job of balancing the character’s disparate points, in any case that is the character who parallels Osmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

The refrain had been joined by two dancers and as an ensemble they had been extremely bodily, making an enormous impression with some 34 singers creating an exciting sound. It was pretty to listen to this music in a dramatic setting. Orchestrally this was a wealthy night with Raphaël Pichon conducting an ensemble of some 45 gamers together with double woodwind, two trumpets and three trombones. And I actually loved the sound of the forte piano within the ensembles. The start and finish of the piece additionally used a recording of Mozart’s music for glass harmonica, a mysterious and magical means of transporting us into the previous, although I may discover no credit score for the performer within the programme.

Mozart: Zaide – Raphaël Pichon, Pygmalion – Salzburg Pageant (Picture: SF/Marco Borrelli)

This was a night of such musical riches that you simply simply forgot any dramaturgical infelicity. No model of Zaide might be good, however Raphaël Pichon and his performers invested a lot within the music and the piece that we had been carried away with them.